


A Very Long Estrangement

by mirandu



Category: Dragon Age II
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-03-28
Updated: 2013-03-28
Packaged: 2017-12-06 18:13:56
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,143
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/738640
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mirandu/pseuds/mirandu
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Marian Hawke deals with her relationship (or lack thereof) with Fenris between Acts 2 and 3 of Dragon Age II.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Very Long Estrangement

**Author's Note:**

> A/N: I guess I don't really need a note here, I think, but whatever. This is just one take on how those three years between Acts 2 and 3 could've played out for Marian Hawke and Fenris.
> 
> I had this uploaded to ye olde FFnet way back in the day, but deleted it for [reasons]. Now I’m uploading it here. I’m fickle like that.

Marian Hawke is not a crier.

Not usually. She's never seen much point in it. Crying was always Carver's thing. The Hawke girls had their own ways of dealing with hurts: Bethany by withdrawing behind her sad eyes, Marian by deflecting with jokes—and, all right, she could be honest: _sometimes_ with aggression. Her father had once accused her of thinking with her fists, and maybe it was true, but beating something did seem more productive to her than shedding useless tears. Fighting might not solve all her problems, but it certainly made her feel better. At least, it used to.

She doesn't fight when Fenris leaves. She doesn't hit anything. She definitely doesn't cry—not when she hears the door shut, hears his footsteps fade, hears the echo of movement on the street. She just sits there and thinks: _What just happened?_

She takes it apart piece by piece. The footsteps. The closing door. His words still hanging faintly in the air, like they've been burned there. She sits almost naked, the sweat that has cooled on her spreading a chill down her limbs. She can still feel the imprint of his body against hers, his breath along her skin. Marks that will linger. She'll be sore tomorrow—she's sore _now_ —but that doesn't matter. She watches the door.

She listens.

Waits.

Listens some more.

________________________________________

_All right, Hawke. Think._

She progresses to pacing. She pulls on her robe, slides her legs over the bed, pads to the fireplace, and begins a slow circuit. Her window is open, letting the warm air escape into the empty, clinging darkness of Hightown. She hears sounds out on the street. The noises here are different from Lowtown, but not entirely—fewer knifings and prostitutes, mostly. Other sounds are the same: neighbors fighting, much too loudly; the rustle of animals or beggars sifting through trash; metal scraping somewhere in the distance. Shouting. Murmurs. A low, throaty laugh. Voices—none of them his.

_Think._

It was too soon, maybe. It shouldn't have happened like that. She pushed him too fast. She'd definitely pushed him, she remembers that—but he pushed her first. That was fair, right? It's not her fault. It wasn't planned. It just sort of happened. He pushed her; she pushed him. And then their clothes vanished.

Maker, it was a miracle they'd even made it up the stairs.

Now, her body warms just at the memory of it: their fervor and haste, the slam of his heartbeat against her, how he'd entered her too quickly, before she was ready, and when she'd cried out he'd drawn back—asked if he'd hurt her—and she'd breathed _yes_ and arched up against him. He'd said her name, then. Not Hawke. Marian. Repeated it whenever his lips weren't touching her skin. _Marian. Marian._ And finally, their bodies spent, she'd curled her fingers in his hair and fallen asleep pressed against him.

And woken alone in her bed.

_Think._

She hadn't said she loved him. She wouldn't do that. Would she? Did she? She'd said a lot of things, most of them jumbled and incoherent, barely even words. The sorts of things that Isabela might scrawl in inappropriate places, or that would make Sebastian run off to pray. But she hadn't said she _loved_ him.

Unless she had.

That would probably be bad.

She keeps pacing.

The door eases open and her dog lopes in, wagging his tail. She doesn't even bother to tell him to keep off the bed.

________________________________________

She spends the next night at the Hanged Man.

Varric knows that something's wrong immediately. He tells her he could see her moping all the way from Hightown, that her glower scared six groups of thugs off the street. He buys her a pint, and it's one of those nights she doesn't even care that the whiskey smells like nug piss—according to Varric—and tastes even worse, or that it burns through her all the way from ankles to eyelids. She's on her third drink when he pries the story out of her.

Well, some of the story. There are certain details she keeps to herself. It's not like he won't make them up anyway.

She takes a long swallow, slams her mug down, and says, "It isn't supposed to _be_ like this."

Varric doesn't look entirely sympathetic. But then again, she can't be certain. She's never been good at holding her liquor. She counts herself lucky she can still see only one of him. A doubled dwarf is more than she take right now.

One eyebrow raised, he shakes his head, leaning back in his chair. "Now, Hawke, I mean this in the most loving way possible, but which part of his broody hate-the-world persona made you think pursuing him would be sunshine and roses?"

She's not exactly in the mood for his humor. "Did I say I wanted sunshine and roses? I'd have settled for a _Good morning_ instead of a _Good night_. And he didn't even say that!"

He probably would've said it was a _fine_ night. More things she won't be sharing with Varric.

She takes another drink.

Somehow, Isabela has found them. Of course she has. That woman can hear someone talk about sex from six leagues away. Now she's perching on the edge of her chair, leaning low across the table, and her eyes have taken on that familiar wicked glint. "Do you want me to spank him?"

Hawke pounds her head against the table.

"Just give him time, Hawke," Varric suggests. He's using his gentle voice now, the one he usually reserves for when things are _really_ bad, and that just makes her feel worse. "And if that fails, Bianca and I will knock some sense into him."

"Oh, yes, that's right," she says, feeling more miserable than ever. "Let's _threaten_ him into giving a shit."

Varric shrugs. "From what I've seen, caring too little isn't his problem." He reaches forward, sliding her mug out of reach, and she gives him the most menacing glare she can muster. Apparently, it's not very menacing. "All right, now you're depressing me," Varric says. "Go hit Corff. It'll make you feel better."

She glances at the bartender. "Forget to pay your tab?"

"He's overcharging. So that'll make _me_ feel better."

"If you were a real friend, you'd let me hit you instead."

He snorts. "Are you kidding? I happen to like my nose where it is."

"You could hit me," Isabela offers, licking her lips. "But you'll have to tie me up first."

Hawke groans. "I need another drink."

"What you _need_ ," Isabela says, "is a night at the Rose. In fact, I'm feeling generous. I'll let you share my discount."

"A night at the Blooming Rose… followed by a morning at Anders's clinic." She suppresses a shudder. "Thanks, I'll pass. I'm not that drunk." She reaches for her mug.

Beside her, Varric shakes his head again. "Heh. _Yet_."

________________________________________

She wakes up in Varric's bed.

Her head isn't just pounding; she's not even sure it's still attached. And—Sweet Maker—something _smells_. It's probably her. Not the most comforting thought.

She stumbles across the room to where Varric sits at his table, idly shuffling cards. He has a mug of something foul waiting for her. She grimaces down at him. "I hope it was more memorable for you."

He just shakes his head. "Believe me, Hawke, that is one night I'm not likely to forget."

"I think I'm glad I did. Next time you're spinning tales of my exploits, could you maybe leave out this whole humiliating rejection thing?" She sinks into a chair, closing her eyes and leaning back. Maybe if she pretends it's not there, the rest of the world will go away. At least for another few hours.

"What if I just tell everyone we fed him to a dragon, and he died weeping your name and begging forgiveness?"

She smiles at that, and then thinks better of it. It's probably best not to try any sort of facial expression just yet. She stares down at the mug Varric keeps pushing toward her. Maker's breath—what _is_ that?

"I'm warning you, though," he continues, tapping his fingers on the table. "You get sick on my boots again, all bets are off."

"I'll buy you new boots."

He dangles a pouch in front of her. "You already did."

"Great. I come to you in desolation, and you take advantage of my coin purse."

Varric only laughs. "Just be glad that's all I took advantage of," he says. "It could be worse. You could've woken up with Rivaini."

Well, she muses. There is that.

________________________________________

She takes Varric's advice.

She gives Fenris time. She tries to be patient. She doesn't ask questions, or demand explanations, or tell him he's hurt her, or tell him to leave, or beg him to come back. She doesn't even hit him, and sometimes she itches to. Instead, she repeats this to herself: _Give him time. Give him time._

But then a week becomes a month, and a month becomes two, and nothing changes. He won't talk about it. Some days he'll barely talk, at all, and when he speaks to her, his eyes slip away; his words are cautious, wary.

Her friends are no help. Merrill keeps watching them and giggling. Anders can't suppress his satisfaction. Sebastian doesn't seem to understand that there are some things prayer won't fix. And Aveline… Hawke loves her dearly, but tact was never Aveline's strong suit.

But Fenris himself is the worst.

She can feel him watching her. It's some strange sense she's developed: an awareness along her skin whenever his eyes are on her. She'd like to call it magic, just to piss him off, but that isn't it; she's become attuned to him, whether she wills it or not. He turns away quickly enough when she catches him, but she can't miss that look in his eyes, can't fail to understand it when she feels the same thing every time she looks at him. A deep, hungry ache, charged with want, both sexual and not, a longing that she can't disguise or deny and can only hope to withstand.

Some days, she wants to pick fights with him. Anything to get under his skin, get a reaction. She doesn't dare touch him, but there are other ways to fight. She plans elaborate scenarios in her head. They're out of the city, in the cool winds of the coast, surrounded by sea and sand. Or they're in the mountains, removed from everyone else, with no place for him to dodge or hide or disappear. He'll stop for a moment; she'll turn; she'll speak. She'll let her anger out.

"Sneaked out of any rooms lately?" she'll say.

Or, "Do you really think you're fooling anyone?"

Or maybe just, "I want my scarf back."

And after that, she'll shout, and he'll look at her, and he'll see her, and his eyes won't slide away. He'll move closer. The wind will blow his hair back from his face. He'll reach up, slowly, and touch her shoulder. He'll say _Forgive me_. He'll say her name.

But she doesn't speak. Not in the city or out of it, not when they're alone and the quiet is like a spell around them, weighted and ready to spark. Because she knows he'll never do any of these things.

Instead, she thinks, maybe he'll leave.

________________________________________

She doesn't cry when her mother dies.

She thinks maybe she should. If there's a time for tears, this is it. Now, when she is alone, more than she ever has been before. Now, when she can still see the pallor of her mother's face, the jagged line that circled her throat, the stench of death everywhere—in her hair, on her skin. Now she should cry.

But she doesn't. She can't. She feels vacant, blank, like she's living someone else's life. This isn't Marian Hawke, surely. That girl died with her brother on the way out of Lothering. That girl died with her sister in the cold, uncaring dark of the Deep Roads.

Her door opens.

She looks up when he steps inside, but even though it's unexpected, she can't feel surprise. She can't seem to feel anything, except that, for a moment, she wants to laugh. After all the nights she waited, after all the looks, the longing, the aching, the anger—now he's here.

Part of her wants to tell him to leave. To tell him he has no right, to tell him she can't bear to have him there.

But there aren't any words in her. Not to make him go, or beg him to stay. She stumbles through a sentence, then looks away. It's not what she wants. For a moment, she thinks she understands what he must have felt—the room closing in, time fragmenting, everything futile and inescapable, inevitable. It's her turn to be overwhelmed and afraid.

He sits beside her. They let the silence run between them, and it is something strange, soothing, to sit there and listen to him breathe, with no words to occupy or divide them.

She wants him to say her name. More than anything.

He doesn't, but he stays there with her, quiet, asking nothing, as the moon slides down and the fire dims and her eyes begin to shut. He's so close that she could reach out and take his hand, and she thinks maybe he'd even let her.

And it is almost enough.

________________________________________

After a year, she decides that she is done with waiting.

It's time. Time to move on. Time to stop hoping. Whatever happened between them has passed, and she's an idiot to spend her days pining for someone who simply does not love her back. Never mind that she can see the flash of red at his wrist every time he swings his sword, every time he raises a glass to his lips—it doesn't mean anything. She's certain of that now. He would have told her. He would have come to her. Maybe Anders is right, and Fenris simply isn't capable of anything more.

So she will move on.

What was it Isabela said about the best way to get over someone?

Really, she should know better than to take advice from Isabela, but she doesn't.

She meets the boy at the market in Hightown. Not really a boy—older than she is, but too young in temperament to truly be a man. He takes her for drinks in one of the taverns run by the Merchants Guild, away from her friends. She barely catches his name. He's the son of some noble, she thinks, though she can't remember which—there are so many of them.

When he leads her out into the street, she's had a drink, but she's not drunk. She allows him to take her hand and kiss her neck, and she follows him home, through the twisting of dark alleys she's cleared with her blade. She tells herself, tonight she is not the Champion. She is not a Marian or a Hawke or even an Amell. She is nameless and free and she is bound by nothing. She tells herself she doesn't mind the way he fumbles at her breasts.

In his house, they stumble up creaking stairs to his bedroom, where a fire burns low and ashy and the bed is unmade. She takes off all her clothes and stands bare before him, the firelight flashing on her skin, and she says to herself— _This is what I want._

She knows it's a mistake even before it begins.

She doesn't stop it. Somehow, she has become disconnected from her body. Everything is unreal and detached as she watches herself draw him to her, watches herself slide back against the bed. It's strange to see herself: those are her hands, working their way down his shoulders; those are her legs slipping against his; that's her neck arching back. She closes her eyes. He calls her by name, and she bites down on his lip to silence him. She lets her body move to his rhythm, feels her climax rock through her, feels as though she is somewhere far away, as though she is someone else.

When he falls asleep, she collects what she can find of her clothing and slinks out into the darkness.

 _Maker, I'm worse than he is,_ she thinks. At least he had waited until she woke up.

Later, she can see it in Fenris's eyes as he watches her. He knows.

She can see the hurt there. The bitterness. The jealousy. Most horrible of all—the understanding.

She wants to lash out, demand what he expected, what he wants from her. Why he's still with her, and not with her. But he just looks at her, and she isn't certain which of them she hates more.

For the first time in years, she goes back to her house and she cries.

But that isn't the worst of it.

________________________________________

The worst comes later.

The worst is when they fall back into routine. One year becomes two, and two edges into three. Suddenly, they are back in the same old, familiar pattern. The anger falters and then fades—and then they are _friends_ again. Meeting and speaking, playing cards, fighting together, drinking together, laughing now and then. He sits in her parlor and sips wine; she gives him books to read. Somehow that stab of longing she always felt when she looked at him has dulled into a lonely, lingering ache.

Time to move on, she tells herself again. Time to give up.

And then: Not yet. Not yet. Not yet.

What was it Aveline said about mourning?

_My choice._

But what is she mourning? A night? Not even a full night. A few moments, stitched together. A worn-out memory beginning to fray. The sound of her name on his lips. Her body bucking against his. And that shiver of happiness, unlike anything she'd felt before or since.

And then a voice—probably her own; she fixes everyone else's life, she'll have to be the one to fix this.

_You've lost so much. Hold onto this._

Not time to move on. Not yet. Not yet.

Because sometimes it's different. Sometimes she turns, and sees him, and it's like no time at all has passed—they're still there, in her room, in a single stopped second burned by the heat of their bodies. She is on her side, facing him. Their eyes are locked, their skin touching. She is telling him she loves him; she knows now that she did. It's his eyes, not his words, that answer her.

And she doesn't want to move on. She wants to move with.

Her choice.


End file.
